WARNING: Pekko Nilakka Folder!!!!

I believe that Lycosa and others (including myself) might like to see the blade after being ground back and in a "whittle-ready" state.
 
Lycosa said:
Are not Scandi grinds chisel grinds and Scandis excel at cutting wood, no?
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I think that you could look at scandi grinds as perhaps a 2 sided chisel grind.

I'm in the small minority that also think that no, scandis do NOT excel at cutting wood. I have several knives that are much better, and thinner. The problem that scandi grinds have is that they are MUCH too thick to be effective, IMO. I see people here posting that this Spyderco has failed where a $10 Mora would have worked. Yeah, the Mora would work because the primary grind is about twice as thick as it needs to be in order to protect the steel.

Spyderco should be commended for pushing the limits once again. A lot of the people that sit around pissing and moaning about "sharpened prybars" are now piling onto Spyderco because they allegedly went too thin. Big deal. Put a microbevel on it, or convex it, and problem solved. Takes all of 2 minutes.

If you guys want Sal to turn out nothing but 60 degree bevels, well, this is a great way to get it done. And we wonder why knives come from the factory with such thick bevels...
 
Sure.

I was over at my friends today and we killed and dressed 5 turkeys and I brought the blade. I used it to cut the wings and the legs off at the joints. You know you sort of score it all around the joint and then crack it with your hands and then cut the tendons. Lots of bone to blade contact though not as hard as deer bones or something. No chipping. I'll try to take an edge pic tmorrow
 
So, you're saying that unusably thin is superior to unusably thick? That an edge which fails when it cuts is better than one that fails to cut but remains undamaged?

Changing the edge angle on a brand-new $200 knife is no big deal for me, and apparently not for you either. There are a lot of people on this forum who will disagree. At least one has posted his concern in this very thread. The number of "How to sharpen?" threads I see here lead me to belive there are a good number of people who are simply not capable of doing so.

Some time, when you aren't too busy, you might try investigating the difference between edge angle (degrees) and edge thickness (linear measurement, usually expressed in thousandths of an inch). A "Scandi" grind (flat saber zero grind) at 20° included and 0.140" thick will perform some types of woodworking tasks quite well, better than a full flat grind with a 40° edge bevel 0.050" thick. The FFG at 40° would penetrate better for deep cuts, but for shaving strips off the surface, the scandi will work better. Yes, I was surprised when I found this out first hand. However, a FFG with a 20° edge bevel 0.007" thick will outperform both - right up until it fails, at which point either of the others become superior. And a FFG with a 10° edge bevel (the main grind) which crumples cutting thin layers off soft wood, well, yes, I'd call that too thin. If the idea was to market a puukko-shaped straight razor, Sal could have just said "it was designed for cutting soft materials only, don't use it on anything harder than celery" and I'd have said "my bad" and dropped the matter. Since the design intent appears to have been something that could cut wood, a change was in order. I'm glad to see a change will be made so that people who lack your sharpening skills will be able to experience using a truly sharp knife more than once for that price.
 
sodak said:
I think that you could look at scandi grinds as perhaps a 2 sided chisel grind.

I'm in the small minority that also think that no, scandis do NOT excel at cutting wood. I have several knives that are much better, and thinner. The problem that scandi grinds have is that they are MUCH too thick to be effective, IMO. I see people here posting that this Spyderco has failed where a $10 Mora would have worked. Yeah, the Mora would work because the primary grind is about twice as thick as it needs to be in order to protect the steel.

Spyderco should be commended for pushing the limits once again. A lot of the people that sit around pissing and moaning about "sharpened prybars" are now piling onto Spyderco because they allegedly went too thin. Big deal. Put a microbevel on it, or convex it, and problem solved. Takes all of 2 minutes.

If you guys want Sal to turn out nothing but 60 degree bevels, well, this is a great way to get it done. And we wonder why knives come from the factory with such thick bevels...
Click to expand...

I disagree with the first statement there. It really depends on how steep the scandi grind is.

Lycosa said:
A "Scandi" grind (flat saber zero grind) at 20° included and 0.140" thick will perform some types of woodworking tasks quite well, better than a full flat grind with a 40° edge bevel 0.050" thick.
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Totally agree with that one.

I agree with the second. For me it is much easier to make a thin edge as thick as I want than make a thick edge as thin as I want.

I also agree that it's refreshing to see somebody shoot for a really thin edge but I don't think people are wrong to give feedback that it's way too thin. I don't think or I hope it doesn't cause them to overcompensate in the other direction which is what I think you are saying is a potential problem. I love this knife hope they keep the edge pretty thin.
 
I guess a traditional Finish knife should be able to cut wood without messing up the edge. Since it is designed as a folding pukko I don't see anything wrong with complaining about the fragile edge.
 
yablanowitz said:
So, you're saying that unusably thin is superior to unusably thick? That an edge which fails when it cuts is better than one that fails to cut but remains undamaged?

Changing the edge angle on a brand-new $200 knife is no big deal for me, and apparently not for you either. There are a lot of people on this forum who will disagree. At least one has posted his concern in this very thread. The number of "How to sharpen?" threads I see here lead me to belive there are a good number of people who are simply not capable of doing so.

Some time, when you aren't too busy, you might try investigating the difference between edge angle (degrees) and edge thickness (linear measurement, usually expressed in thousandths of an inch). A "Scandi" grind (flat saber zero grind) at 20° included and 0.140" thick will perform some types of woodworking tasks quite well, better than a full flat grind with a 40° edge bevel 0.050" thick. The FFG at 40° would penetrate better for deep cuts, but for shaving strips off the surface, the scandi will work better. Yes, I was surprised when I found this out first hand. However, a FFG with a 20° edge bevel 0.007" thick will outperform both - right up until it fails, at which point either of the others become superior. And a FFG with a 10° edge bevel (the main grind) which crumples cutting thin layers off soft wood, well, yes, I'd call that too thin. If the idea was to market a puukko-shaped straight razor, Sal could have just said "it was designed for cutting soft materials only, don't use it on anything harder than celery" and I'd have said "my bad" and dropped the matter. Since the design intent appears to have been something that could cut wood, a change was in order. I'm glad to see a change will be made so that people who lack your sharpening skills will be able to experience using a truly sharp knife more than once for that price.
Click to expand...
No. I'm saying that an unusably thin edge can be made usable in minutes, where an unusably thick edge takes many times longer to bring into usability.

I have FFG edges at 0.005 (thank you Tom Krein) and under 20 inclusive that don't fail, and will easily outcut any scandi grind in wood. Easily. It's also at 67 HRC, which gives it the strength to support that edge. Strength is directly related to hardness, in case you were wondering.

I really take exception to all these statements that the scandi grinds are best for wood, with everyone sitting around nodding their heads. BS. Yes, there are better scandis than others, and there are better FFG's and convexes than others, but from my measurements, my $10 Moras (number 1's and number 2's) are over TWICE as thick than some of my relatively inexpensive FFG's, both in primary grind or edge thickness. They don't even come close in cutting ability. Yes, for a $10 knife, they work fine, but they are certainly NOT the be-all end-all of knives or wood cutting.

If you want to use an inexpensive steel, and slap a thick grind on it (yes, I'm calling Moras thick), then go ahead and use one. They work. My point is that there are others that work much better.

Spyderco should be commended for trying this. If you go too thick, you simply get a knife that doesn't cut well, there's no risk to the maker except perhaps reputation. If you go too thin, then you run the far greater risk of edge damage and reputation. The edge damage is easily fixed, but yet, they will probably have to make some changes - before their reputation and the knife's reputation is wrongly trashed.
 
sodak said:
A lot of the people that sit around pissing and moaning about "sharpened prybars" are now piling onto Spyderco because they allegedly went too thin.

And we wonder why knives come from the factory with such thick bevels...
Click to expand...

There must be a bunch of other threads I've missed. There haven't been enough posters in the ones I've seen to qualify as "a lot", and some of us have been trying to provide some potentially useful data points for Sal's consideration. I don't wonder at all about why they come with thick edges, I'm well aware the world is filled with idiots. The reality is manufacturers have to do that to avoid having all their knives come back as defective when ninnies try to baton them through school busses. That doesn't mean I have to like it.


sodak said:
No. I'm saying that an unusably thin edge can be made usable in minutes, where an unusably thick edge takes many times longer to bring into usability.
Click to expand...

For some of us, yes. For others, they just blew $200 on a knife they can't use. As much as I wish I could, I can't afford to buy half of all the Nilakkas produced even if you can afford to buy the other half to keep them out of the hands of people who couldn't fix a problem like that if their life depended on it. With a little help, it's far too nice a user to be relagated to display cases. Thanks to threads like this, it sound like they are going to get that help.
 
French onion soup is tasty, Yablanowitz is a curmudgeon, and the knife is ground at a bevel that is too thin for s30v to be exceptional at.

Some people can sharpen, some people can't, Yablanowitz is a valued member of Spyderco's forum and longtime Spyderco fan, and some people are defending the paper-worthy edge.

Spyderco isn't shipping the knives until they resolve the issue, the world hasn't ended and people still disagree.

Have I summarized the thread completely yet?
 
Sal Glesser said:
Thanx much for all of the communication. Thanx Yab, I think that might be too thin for "general" customers. I'll make my final decisions this weekend. Then we'll mod all of the pieces and begin shipping.sal
Click to expand...

Hey Sal, did you decide how to proceed?
 
sodak said:
No. I'm saying that an unusably thin edge can be made usable in minutes, where an unusably thick edge takes many times longer to bring into usability.

I have FFG edges at 0.005 (thank you Tom Krein) and under 20 inclusive that don't fail, and will easily outcut any scandi grind in wood. Easily. It's also at 67 HRC, which gives it the strength to support that edge. Strength is directly related to hardness, in case you were wondering.

I really take exception to all these statements that the scandi grinds are best for wood, with everyone sitting around nodding their heads. BS. Yes, there are better scandis than others, and there are better FFG's and convexes than others, but from my measurements, my $10 Moras (number 1's and number 2's) are over TWICE as thick than some of my relatively inexpensive FFG's, both in primary grind or edge thickness. They don't even come close in cutting ability. Yes, for a $10 knife, they work fine, but they are certainly NOT the be-all end-all of knives or wood cutting.If you want to use an inexpensive steel, and slap a thick grind on it (yes, I'm calling Moras thick), then go ahead and use one. They work. My point is that there are others that work much better.

Spyderco should be commended for trying this. If you go too thick, you simply get a knife that doesn't cut well, there's no risk to the maker except perhaps reputation. If you go too thin, then you run the far greater risk of edge damage and reputation. The edge damage is easily fixed, but yet, they will probably have to make some changes - before their reputation and the knife's reputation is wrongly trashed.
Click to expand...


I hear you. Bark River sort of put convex on the map, but the reason they did was that they put a really THIN convex edge that cut really well. But just like you say about Scand i- people thought convex was then the best grind but really a thin edge cuts well no matter what the grind.
 
So I may have bought mine off of GP Knives (experienced the same issues with the blade), and am going to have it resharpened hopefully next week, any suggestions what might be best?
 
Hi Cody,

Welcome to our forum.

What we're doing now is 60 strokes on a diamond at 30 degrees and 20 strokes on a fine stone at 30 degerees. Seems to be working fine.

sal
 
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